Memeorandum

April 26, 2010

Great Moments In The Epistemic Closure Debate

The reliable Ezra Klein delivers a laugher while surprising the world with his analysis explaining that the right wing is more close-minded than the left:

I think that the counterargument some conservatives might offer would
be...

He thinks? Dare I ask whether Mr. Open Mind has actually asked any of his conservative friends about this, read a conservative publication, or otherwise put this speculation to the test?

I wish I were making this stuff up.

AS TO HIS ARGUMENT... His gist is that the left has nothing like right wing talk radio, so therefore righties are living in a bubble. To complete his rebuttal:

I think that the counterargument some conservatives might offer would be
that the New York Times and CBS News are liberal, but anyone arguing
that those outlets are partisan or politicized in the way that Limbaugh
is partisan and politicized is, well, sort of a walking example of
epistemic closure.

Do tell. What I would argue (in near-perfect lockstep with righties everywhere) is that Rush et al are *alternative* media - typical righties are still barraged with the viewpoints of the NY Times, the non-Fox evening news, TIME magazine, and the mainstream media generally. Righties willing to make the effort can limit themselves to Fox News and the WSJ editorial page, but it is an effort. (Full disclosure - I can't make that effort myself because I have spent several decades reflexively brandishing my fist at the television or shaking my newspaper and muttering "Why are they pushing these lies!" That makes watching Fox very discomfiting.)

A typical lefty could listen to NPR on the drive to work, pick up the NY Times/LA Times/Washington Post, watch CNN, read Newsweek/TIME, and feel very well informed. Although Ezra might not agree, some of us think such a person is actually well cocooned. To be fair, they often get some "Now they tell us" coverage eventually, as on health care, when the time for cheerleading has passed.

To pick an illustrative but otherwise unimportant example seemingly at random - a regular reader Times reader / NPR listener would have no way of knowing that Obama and his team lied throughout the campaign about his relationship with Bill Ayers, and are almost surely still lying. (David Remnick of the New Yorker preferred the word "disingenuous" in his recent book on Obama.)

Now, if a cocooned lib does not know that Obama has been lying they are more likely to fall in line with the notion that Sarah Palin is a right wing nutjob for even mentioning Ayers.

Obviously, that is not as important as a rational national debate on global warming. That said, I meet many well-informed libs, and few of them take the position that they understand that Obama is lying about Ayers but don't care. The most common response is that Sarah Palin is not fit to be President, which is a bit of a non sequitur, one might think. Bush lied about his military service is another typical but not entirely topical response.

Well. As a broader theme, the notion that Obama is lying about his biography while our watchdog press looks the other way troubles me; I think most libs are not even aware that it is happening. Fortunately, I have Rush to open my mind.

EVERYTHING NEW IS OLD AGAIN: Henry Farrel of The Monkey Cage tells us this has been done by Larry Bartels; in the one instance on offer, conservatives are dismally uninformed as to the change in income inequality over time.

But we righties weren't always stupid! Or at least, we weren't always alone in our stupidity; this is from a different Bartels paper:

For one thing, voters’ perceptions may be seriously skewed by partisan biases. For example, in a 1988 survey a majority of respondents who described themselves as strong Democrats said that inflation had “gotten worse” over the eight years of the Reagan administration; in fact, it had fallen from 13.5 percent in 1980 to 4.1 percent in 1988. Conversely, a majority of Republicans in a 1996 survey said that the federal budget deficit had increased under Bill Clinton; in fact, the deficit had shrunk from $255 billion to $22 billion. Surprisingly, misperceptions of this sort are often most prevalent among people who should know better—those who are generally well informed about politics, at least as evidenced by their answers to factual questions about political figures, issues, and textbook civics.

And the gloomy consequence:

If close attention to elite political discourse mostly teaches people to believe what the partisan elites on “their” side would like to be true, the fundamental premise of books such as Rick Shenkman’s—that a more attentive, politically engaged electorate would make for a healthier democracy—may be groundless.20

Comments

You're right, but does it really matter? Klein isn't reaching anyone who doesn't either already agree with him or is looking to argue with him... his ability to sway independents is probably close to nil.

Obama, by his lights, isn't lying. He espouses a Marxist/Leninist doctrine of truth (known in Islam as taqqiyah) according to which truth is that which leads to victory. People who don't understand his own ideological self identity will always be at a loss to understand what he's up to, endlessly parsing his words to find a kernel of conventional sincerity. The fact that his self identity is essentially ideological is at the core of his emptiness.

It's easier to make fun of Ezra then it is to figure out how to smash the iron curtain of information to reach out to busy people who have no other readily accessible form of information than the morning paper and the evening news.

Too much of the alternative media IMO wastes time on idiots like him when they need to reach out to intelligent but cocooned voters.

I think that Klein deserves a hand for his part in generating these these type of results for the newspaper dumb enough to employ him. He and other credentialed morons of his ilk are doing more to destroy the liberal fog machine through a careful blend of inanity and simple stupidity than Rush could hope for.

TC,

Is it "close minded" or "empty headed"? I recognize that the average credentialed moron has received the full detriment of a complete liberal indoctrination (usually at an Ivy League diploma mill) but the depths reached in their pursuit of becoming effective propagandists suggest a paucity of functioning synapses in general. That appears to be true across the board in all 57 states, IMO.

Since I didn't follow TM's original link about those hypersonic weapons in the Barack Obama Strangelove thread I didn't catch that they are referenced in the new START treaty. Legal Insurrection points out (as did the Times) that for each one we deploy we have to retire a nuke.
Perhaps everyone else already realized what a stupid and pointless concession Barry made but I didn't.

The reason Ezra is important to pay attention to is he telegraphs what the Democrats are going to do next, and what their thinking on certain subjects is. He kind of prepackages the Dem information for other journalists to use (or occasionally reject).
So in a way, understanding Ezra is a weapon in smashing the iron curtain to which Clarice refers.

Mark Ambinder, on the other hand, is valuable for knowing what the *WH* spin is going to be on something.

Both of them were talking about- and using the term- "epistemic closure" in the past few days.

We're moving from "Teabaggers are dangerous" to "Conservatives are dumb" as we (were supposed) to move into the climate change debate.

I wonder how epistemically open libs are to arguments against the Dodd corporate governance provisons (some of which arguments are summarized in the LUN). I wonder how many libs have even thought about whether the Dodd approach to regulatory reform will do anything other than further burden the economy with rulemaking gone wild.

I can't wait for the David Brooks op ed in which he discusses Niebuhr's and Burke's views on epistemic closure, and on how only cultured, educated elites such as himself can avoid the fate of being epistemically closed.

The thing I am trying to figure out is to what niche group the libs are trying to appeal by spouting the epistemic closure mantra. Are contributions to the Democratic National Committee from post-modern studies professors at northeastern colleges down?

how can these people take themselves seriously? When even SNL is running parodies of Dear Leader's incompetence, it would seem obvious, even to a benighted conservative such as myself, that there is a credibility/truthfulness issue issue with this administration that is apparently unseen by the Ministry of Propaganda.

I just looked up the word epistemic, and at least yahoo doesn't have a definition. I do know epistemiology is the study of the nature of knowledge. So did this assclown and his associates simply invent their own word?

Amazingly, they still don't get the phase shift in the definition of counterculture.

You know rather than dwelling on all this gynecological stuff that Ezra is tranfixed with, maybe we should be discussing the notion that Obama lied to the FBI and should be getting in a heap of trouble sometime soon.

Hey guys, I am pretty sure the "epistemic closure" phrase first appeared in an NRO article by Jim Manzi who went after Mark Levin. Then various NRO bloggers, discussed or disagreed with Manzi, and it spread from there.

That was Ed Rendell's duty this morning. He repeated, over and over, the number of protesters in DC on tax day was less than 1,000. Why was the media even bothering covering them? He could 100,000 to show up on a moment's notice for a protest on pet rights. Or something along those lines.

msm will say anything to marginalize the tea Party movement. On election day we will truly realize those who have been cut down to size. On May 4th in Ohio we have dumb SOS Brunner and dumber Fisher {Strickland appointee } in a dem primary contest. Portman should make mincemeat out of either one of these puppets.

re: closed mind vs empty headed
A closed mind can always be opened, and an empty head can be filled, but who does the filling? And who opens the closed mind, but the mind itself?
I prefer "stuck on stupid"

This is OT, but gets to the "slobbering love affair" the NYT has with the Prez. I had the great fortune to witness (my old team) the Bronx Bombers get pounded by (my adopted team) the Halos yesterday in Anaheim. Checking the NYT account of the game, I came across this howler:

But Obama is an ardent White Sox fan, and he may be curious why Vazquez, who endured three inconsistent seasons playing on the South Side of Chicago, is struggling so much.

Yeah, I'm sure he's curious about that since he's so ardent that he can not name his favorite White Sox players and he thinks they play in Comminsky Park. But, when you have the NYT writing your hagiography, it doesn't matter. (I apologize ahead of time if I've unleashed the "italics" monster on the thread.)

We'll have to meet half way between Atlanta and Porch Country when the babies can travel. Of course I can't remember that far back when my first child made her first car trip. Is six months about right?

Read as much of his column today as I could stand. Says he wants the Tea Party movement to quit their yapping about the Constitution and Government overspending, and instead do something valuable to really make themselves relevant---Go Green.

Friedman says that's what the Tea Partier's need to do to really make a positive impact on America and the world, and that he's willing to draw the Go Green rallying Posters for the Tea Party movement himself.

It surprises me that a guy like Friedman wants to associate with all those angry, hate-mongering, white racist/fascist extremists that make up the Tea Party, but oh well, always suspected he was secretly a closet case.

Maybe we should take him up on his offer and converge on his humble, environmentally friendly shack and get him to come out and explain to us all how to live unostentatious Green Lives with low carbon footprints in harmony with GAIA.

Good God!!! Still pushing Bill Ayers and the whole Obama is secretly a commie line? Of all the arguments against Obama that had to be one of the most pathetic and, yes, seems to indicate epistemic closure on your part.

We'll have to meet half way between Atlanta and Porch Country when the babies can travel. Of course I can't remember that far back when my first child made her first car trip. Is six months about right?

How about New Orleans? I think we took our firstborn to Baton Rouge to see family when she was around five months. It was pretty easy.

Thank you, Thomas and Jim! I was looking for a philosophical dictionary and didn't have the time to delve deeper. Now I'll bookmark it.

So basically we have a bunch of word jockeys throwing around obscure terms like hand grenades hoping the hoi poloi won't be able to look them up. That is intellectual bush league-ism.

After reading the definition. I still believe a rock is a rock because it meets all the criteria for being a rock, both by deduction and logical implication. Thus, there is epistemic closure.

However, should that rock be crushed or melt into molten magma (pinkie to edge of lip) one must reopen the epistemic knowledge box and expand the definition of a rock. This is simply reevaluation one's knowledge based upon new data points.

Philosophers can be remarkably obscure, but then, that's in the job description. Writers on politics, on the other hand should have some facility in conveying either the facts or their views in an effective manner.

What we do know from this episode, dear correspondents, is that there is epistemic closure in observing that Mr. Klein, Mr. Manzi, et al are assclowns through the "if it walks like a duck" theorem of Parsnippius.

--Still pushing Bill Ayers and the whole Obama is secretly a commie line?--

Well if GWB is still 'Bushitler' to Dave and his ilk, even though he's never been associated with any Nazi's, it doesn't seem too close-minded to remember that Barry launched his political career from the house of an unrepentant Marxist terrorist and then lied about the relationship.

Why push? It's just like when crazies raised questions about that nice Lewinsky girl. Our President told us the truth. He presided over an open administration. Don't we have something better to do, like promote the President's agenda? As he told us, he had to get back to work for the American people.

It so reminds me of the slander put out by the Washington Post about our President Nixon. Imagine, suggesing that he would participate in a felony. He told us, on TV, on CBS even, that he was not a "crook." How much more do you want from the man? He was elected in a landslide and he was ending that awful war.

President Obama, too, was elected in a landslide, one that changed our country to post racial. Some racists just want to see him fail. Haters.

As he, himself, has said, sit down, shut up and get out of the way.

Just be grateful you don't know more about him. There's a purpose for it. Hope.

Cognition is not human and there are all kinds of ways of acquiring knowledge. For example, you could raise the dead and use their lives. It's usually a computer voice cause they don't want ghosts and they can answer questions about ruling and stuff. Like Clinton and his dead Presidents. This is a nice way to get luciferians off your back without having to worry about them assuming bodies.

We can all relive O's wants like hating banking and housing and cars, etc. He should be happy with his past then and not pain us since we are going through his and there might be less earthquakes and stuff if he's happy.

Using others lives is okay, especially for O having got all his fame and fortune that way. It's needed for the survival of the whole human race! O will be happy to let anyone use him cause he's perfect and everything.

The O commie line is China taxing globally capitalists. They think this is a great idea like O's global tax legislation and England's. Why would anyone be mad. Sun sets happen every day and O is just doing the right thing as America dies.

Epistemic closure literally means closing off knowing, a long-time liberal/progressive strategy of avoiding discussion of any and all subjects by refusing to address the topics and hand while suggesting something irrelevant as a subterfuge.

Attempts at epistemic closure are best addressed with a horse laugh, because those who would invoke such BS are immune to logical rejoinder.

Obama has long ago declared his support of socialistic ends in his approach to government. This isn't opinion; it comes from his writings. I don't understand why 100% of republicans and independents polled don't vote in the affirmative.

All they'd have to do to know otherwise is go visit his new church. What's that church that he decided to attend?

45% believe he was not born in the US?

Absurd. The plain and simple truth is his parents, a married man from Kenya named Barack and a woman named Stanley, met in a Russian class in Hawaii, got married, and had a child 7 months later also in Hawaii as has been irrefutably proven by lots of government officials saying that is what happened. Three weeks after that Stanley started school in Washington, and a year later Barack (Sr) moved to Boston, followed in relatively short order by a divorce (from Stanley, not from his first wife, to whom he was still married).

You'd think people had never heard of a whirlwind courtship between a married foreigner and a teenager who, though separated by age, race, and culture, share a forbidden passion and an interest in America's primary enemy, leading to an out-of-wedlock conception and a brief but undoubtedly happy marriage after which both young lovers move more than two thousand miles away from each other and their baby within a year of his birth.

The right wing spent months pointing out that Obama sat through year after year of sermons in Wright's church

Why did it have to be the right that did that? Weren't there interested journalists who wanted to inform the public about such a significant part of the life of the man who would be President?

This is exaclty the defenition of epistemic closure - believing one thing when the evidence is completely to the contrary.

A more "exaclt" "defenition" has been provided already, but for a great example of what you're trying to talk about, look at this:

ABC, July 2008: If you had to do it over again, knowing what you know now, would you support the surge?

Obama: No, because, keep in mind that…

ABC: You wouldn’t?

Obama: Keep in mind… These kinds of hypotheticals are very difficult. Hindsight is 20/20. But I think that, what I’m absolutely convinced of, is that at that time we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one that I just disagreed with.

You sound like a lawyer making a final argument after a trial, x. If you listen to any lawyer on final, you would think the case was open and shut for his/her side. Unfortunately for each of the advocates, the jury has to tease out the "truth" from those two opposing arguments, each from the same evidence, and each from the same points of law.

No, he wanted to "fundamentally transform the United States", which before his rise to power was governed by a Constitution which was "an imperfect document, and [says Obama] a document that reflects some deep flaws in American culture", for some other reason than an agreement with his spiritual advisor (remember him?) that "white folks' greed" is ruining the world.

Why would so many conservatives rather celebrate their "victimhood" than actually create a news media that pleases them?
The reality is that conservatives are overrepresented in the news media. The problem is, the media that represents them are all second-class: tabloids like The New York Post, talkradio like Limbaugh and "ideotainment" like Fox "News" Channel.
Tom writes: ``A typical lefty could listen to NPR on the drive to work, pick up the NY Times/LA Times/Washington Post, watch CNN, read Newsweek/TIME, and feel very well informed.''
But why aren't conservatives content to listen to talkradio on the drive to work, pick up the New York Post/L.A. Daily News/Washington Times, watch Fox News, read The Weekly Standard/National Review and feel very well informed??
The reality is that there is a surfeit of conservative media, but a shortage of conservative readers.
The New York Times has its place of prominence solely because it has a long history of presenting news professionally and within the broadest ideological frame of the majority of readers. There is no government intervention or corporate conspiracy to keep the NYT up and the New York Post down. The reality is that readers simply chose the NY Times over Murdoch's gossip rag because they prefer real news, professional, even if imperfectly, presented.
America is a free country. There are plenty of right-wing billionaires. Given that, why isn't there a "conservative" New York Times or Washington Post?
Are you telling me Rupert Murdoch is too stupid, too poor or too lazy to compete with the New York Times?
What's funniest is the conservative whining is having a toxic effect on their politics.
Conservatives take as an article of faith that they are treated unfairly in the media and therefore believe that Americans would eat their ideology like ice cream if only it would be served up to them. The reality may be that Americans know what the conservatives flavors taste like and freely chose to reject them.
Conservatives would be a lot better off if they stopped whining so much and pretending the media were against them and, instead, worked to build on the considerable advantages they have in the sectors of the media (cable TV and talkradio) they dominate.
Plus, they should also realize WHY they fail in the daily newspaper and weekly magazine business...Hint, it's not because of any conspiracy or any old-boy network, it's because the ideology is suited to blowhards like Rush, not factual news reporting...

Well the WSJ is one of the few papers that really has shown little slippage, it still deals in some of the liberal memes on the front pages. But that is really at the heart
of Ezra's complaint isn't it, even though his world view has been disastrously inadequate
to interpret reality in any significant way.